[Reading by Paula Gold]
WE'RE EXTREMELY FORTUNATE
By Wislawa Symborska
Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare
Cavanagh
We're extremely fortunate
not to know precisely
the kind of world we live in.
One would have
to live a long, long time,
unquestionably longer
than the world itself.
Get to know other worlds,
if only for comparison.
Rise above the flesh,
which only really knows
how to obstruct
and make trouble.
For the sake of research,
the big picture,
and definitive conclusions,
one would have to transcend time,
in which everything scurries and whirls.
From that perspective,
one might as well bid farewell
to incidents and details.
The counting of weekdays
would inevitably seem to be
a senseless activity;
Dropping letters in the mailbox
a whim of foolish youth;
The sign "No Walking on the Grass"
a symptom of lunacy.